Chapter 8

"You're all right, Socks," declared Chilvers. "I only wish I could get as good a press agent as our friend Bishop. When I was a kid I used to push 'em into the pond and run, and let someone else fish them out."

"If a man were to do an act as brave as that," asserted Miss Harding, "the world would acclaim him a hero, and not pile ridicule on him."

"All of which proves that no boy is a hero to another boy," commented Mr. Harding, "and that is as it should be. Boys get their heroes out of books, and as a rule they are fighters and pirates rather than of the self-sacrificing type."

I was glad when Miss Lawrence changed the topic of conversation.

"What do you think?" she exclaimed, addressing no one in particular, "I have discovered that Mr. Wallace knows how to play golf, and that he learned the game on some of the famous old courses of Scotland. He has promised to teach me the St. Andrews swing."

LaHume's face was a study as Miss Lawrence made this rather startling announcement. Surprise, disgust, and anger were reflected in his eyes and in the lines of his mouth.

"You have played St. Andrews?" asked Carter of Wallace.

"Yes, many a time," said this remarkable "hired man." "I was born hard-by the old town," he added.

"Indeed?" sneered LaHume. "What were you while there; caddy or professional?"

I thought I detected a flash of anger in the eyes of the young Scotchman, but if offended he controlled himself admirably. Not so with Miss Lawrence, who glared indignantly at LaHume.

"I doubt if I knew enough of the game," said Wallace, quietly, "to be either. I merely played there and at other places when I had the opportunity."

"Mr. Wallace says that St. Andrews does not compare with some of the newer links in Scotland," declared Miss Lawrence, ignoring LaHume.

"Which ones, for instance?" asked Carter, who has played over most of the fine courses in Great Britain.

"Muirfield and Prestwick offer better golf than St. Andrews, and are not so crowded," replied Wallace. "The farther you get from St. Andrews the greater its reputation, but it is too rough for perfect golf. A long, straight drive is often penalised by a bad lie, and an indifferent shot favoured by a good one, which is more luck than golf."

Carter smiled, and he afterwards told me it struck him as odd that a farmhand should converse in such words and on so peculiar a topic. Wallace good-naturedly and modestly answered a number of questions, but evaded telling the class of his game.

I wonder where Miss Lawrence will receive those lessons which will enable her to acquire the "St. Andrews swing"? I doubt if our rules will permit this remarkable farm labourer to play over Woodvale, even as the guest or at the request of Miss Lawrence. I shall watch developments with much interest.

Wallace asked to be excused, observing with a laugh that it was milking time, and a few minutes later we saw him pass the window, clad in blue overalls and a "jumper."

"Tell you what I'll do with you, LaHume," said Chilvers, who never misses an opportunity to stir up trouble. "I'll bet you a box of Haskells that our Scotch friend, who is now out there milking, can outdrive you twenty yards, and I never saw him with a club in his hands."

"I am not his rival in that or in any other capacity," warmly declared LaHume.

At this instant our hostess arose, giving the signal that the dinner was ended, and we adjourned to the lawn. LaHume said something to Miss Lawrence; she laughed scornfully, and left him and joined Miss Harding.

After cigars and pipes we inspected the new red barn. It is a huge structure, modern in every particular, and Bishop was properly proud of it. The lofts were partially filled with sweet clover hay, and the odour combined with that of the new pine lumber was delicious. The floor had been planed smooth, and oiled and waxed so as to make an excellent space for dancing. The uprights were twined with ivy and decorated with wild flowers, and the effect was pleasing.

The guests were already arriving in all sorts of vehicles, from farm wagons to automobiles.

An "orchestra" of five pieces was on hand, and the musicians took their places beneath a cluster of Chinese lanterns. There were fully a hundred on the floor at nine o'clock, when Mr. Harding and Mrs. Bishop led off in the grand march. I had secured Miss Harding as my partner, and LaHume and Miss Lawrence were behind us. Carter was with some village beauty, but I saw nothing of Wallace in the grand march.

Later he appeared and danced a waltz with Miss Ross, and they made a handsome couple. The "hired man" was as well dressed as any gentleman in the room, and I have never seen a more graceful dancer than that tall, young Scotchman. LaHume watched him like a hawk. When Wallace claimed Miss Lawrence for a schottische the glum LaHume stood by the door and looked as if he would rather fight than dance. Chilvers told him he was making an ass of himself.

It was a glorious night beneath the radiance of a full moon which silvered the lace-work of a mackerel sky. I never fully realised what dancing was until Miss Harding favoured me with a polka. And then we wandered out into the moonlight, talked about the moon, and hunted for the Great Dipper.

Even a plain woman looks pretty when with eyes and chin lifted she gazes at the star-studded heavens, her face profiled against the gleaming orb of a full moon, but no words of mine can describe the splendid beauty of Miss Harding in that attitude. I tried to think of something to say, but was under a spell and could think of nothing, and it was perhaps just as well. I composed some ripping good sentences before I went to sleep that night, but it was too late to use them, and I shall not record them here.

And then we met Wallace and Miss Lawrence, her arm drawn through his, her face lifted toward his, and her tongue going when she was not laughing. They were "walking out" a dance, and evidently enjoying it.

Mr. Harding had the time of his life. He danced with stout farm wives, slender village maidens, and executed a clog dance which made the barn shudder on its foundations. He led the singing, told stories to groups of farmers who shouted with laughter, and refused to go home until Mrs. Harding took him by the arm and fairly dragged him away.

I walked home with Miss Harding.

ENTRY NO. XII

THE ST. ANDREWS SWING

A week has passed since I made the last entry in this diary, and a number of peculiar things have happened.

My brokers have brought an additional 10,000 shares of N.O. & G., which brings my speculative holdings to a total of 25,000 shares. They acquired the last block at an average price of 65, and the market closed to-night at 63. If I were to settle at this figure I would be loser to the amount of $150,000, not including the $23,000 lost on the first two thousand shares purchased, on which I have taken my losses. Counting commissions and interest I am about $175,000 to the bad, but am not in the least worried.

My brokers are now placing their orders through houses in other cities, and I am certain the extent of my operations is a secret beyond the slightest question.

The qualifying round for the "Harding Trophy" brought out the largest field of players in the history of our club competitions. Of course most of those who started declared that they had no expectation of winning, or even of qualifying in the first sixteen. For instance, there was Peabody, whose best medal score is 112.

"Are you going to play for that bronze gent?" demanded Chilvers, as Peabody came to the first tee.

"Thought I might just as well enter," said Peabody. "Of course I know I haven't a chance in the world to win."

"You never can tell," said Chilvers, his face solemn as an owl. Chilvers is a merciless "kidder."

"That's right," admitted Peabody.

"If you play the way I saw you doing the other day, there's not a man in the club has anything on you," asserted Chilvers, winking at me.

"Stranger things have happened," declared Peabody, his face illuminated by a hopeful grin. "I made the last hole yesterday in five, and that is as good as Carter or Smith have done it in this year."

Now, as a matter of fact, there was not one chance in five hundred that Peabody would qualify, and he didn't, but that did not prevent his starting out with a hope and a sort of a faith that by some bewildering combination of circumstances he would qualify, and later on bowl over all of his competitors and carry off the prize with the sweeter honours of victory.

If there be any soil where hope absolutely runs riot it is in the breast of a golfer. The fond mother who cozens herself into the faith that her boy will some day be President of the United States builds on the same foundation as the duffer who enters a competition in which he is outclassed.

Personally I can see no reason why I shall not some day win the international golf championship, and I have strong expectations of doing so, but know perfectly well that I will not. It is a peculiar but delightful complication of mind.

Carter had the best qualifying score, making the round in a consistent eighty. Marshall was second with an eighty-two, Boyd and LaHume were tied with eighty-four each, and I came in fifth with one more. Chilvers, Pepper, and Thomas also qualified, but the cup should lie among the first five.

Candour compels me to admit that on form it should come to a struggle between Carter and Marshall; but if I get into the finals with either of these gentlemen I shall play with confidence of winning.

A most astounding thing has happened! If I were incorporating these events in a narrative or a novel I presume I would reserve the statement I am about to make until the finish, so as to form an effective climax--and on reflection I have decided to do so in these notes. So I will begin at the beginning.

The second day after our visit to Bishop's, Miss Lawrence called me aside on the veranda, and I could see that some great secret had possession of her.

"I wish to ask a favour of you, Mr. Smith," she said, after beating about the brush for a minute.

"Anything at my command is yours," I said.

"I have come to you," she said, "because I know that you are one of the members of the club who can keep a secret. Not that this is any tremendous affair," she added, a blush faintly touching her cheek, "but I don't care to have everybody know it."

I assured her that wild horses could not drag from me any confidence reposed.

"I want to borrow some of your clubs," she faltered.

"My clubs?"

"Yes; some old ones which you do not use regularly."

"You may have any or all the clubs I have," I assured her. "When do you wish them?"

"Right now."

She was silent a moment, and I was too mystified to frame any comment.

"I am going to tell you all about it," she impulsively declared, laying her little hand on my arm. "I want them for Mr. Wallace!"

"Mr. Wallace?" I repeated. At that instant I could not think whom she meant.

"Mr. Bishop's assistant."

"Oh, yes!" I exclaimed. By a mighty effort I kept from smiling. It was the first time I had heard a "hired man" called an "assistant," and I have heard them called many names.

"Do you remember that at the dinner I said Mr. Wallace had promised to teach me the St. Andrews swing?" she asked, her eyes bright with excitement.

"Yes."

"I took my first lesson yesterday afternoon. Miss Ross and I went over to Mr. Bishop's after dinner, as we arranged we should during the dance. We put our clubs in my auto when no one was looking, and went by a roundabout way to the big sheep pasture to the east of the farmhouse. Do you know where it is?"

"Perfectly."

"It was still half an hour from sunset, and Mr. Wallace was there waiting for us. Mr. Smith," clasping her hands, "you should see that gentleman play golf!"

"I had an idea he could play from the moment he lofted your sliced ball over the fence that afternoon," I said.

"Can you go with us?" she asked suddenly. "Miss Ross and I promised Mr. Wallace we would come over this afternoon an I bring a set of men's clubs with us, and it would be just splendid for you to go with us. Will you go, Mr. Smith?"

I assured her it would be a pleasure. At that moment Miss Harding appeared, and we quickly decided to let her into the secret.

"Mr. Wallace said he would arrange with Mr. Bishop to get away from his work an hour or so any time we came over this afternoon," explained Miss Lawrence, "so there will be no deception on his part."

"Oh, you should see him drive!" exclaimed Miss Ross, raising her eyes as if following a ball which was travelling an enormous distance. "And he did not dare hit them hard for fear of breaking my club. It was perfectly lovely!"

"And approach!" added Miss Lawrence.

"And putt!" declared Miss Ross. "It was grand!"

"Let us see this paragon of all the golfing virtues without delay," laughed Miss Harding, and half an hour later our automobile stopped in front of the Bishop house.

Wallace must have been on the outlook for us, since he appeared directly. He seemed a bit surprised to see me, but greeted us pleasantly.

"Miss Lawrence and Miss Ross were so kind as to praise shots I made yesterday," he explained, "but, as Mr. Smith will understand, the good ones were more or less lucky, for it is long since I have had a club in my hand. However, I will do the best I can to illustrate the typical Scottish swings, as I execute them, but please do not expect too much."

We ran the auto into the sheep pasture, and I presume it was the first invasion of those haunts by this modern vehicle. At least the sheep seemed to so regard it, and ran bleating in every direction. It is an ideal spot for an exhibition of the long game, and Bishop has had many offers from golf clubs seeking a location for links. That farmer gentleman appeared shortly after we arrived at the crest of a gentle hill.

"No trespassin' on these here premises!" he grinned.

"How are ye, everybody? Miss Lawrence tells me that my man Wallace, here, is a crackerjack drivin' one of them golf balls. You'd ought to see him drive a team when he first come here. Took him two weeks to learn the difference between 'gee' and 'haw,' and to tell the 'nigh' from the 'off' boss, but I suppose drivin' a golf ball is a sight easier. But I won't bother ye. I'll just stand here and watch. Perhaps I might learn somethin'."

It was a warm afternoon and Wallace laid aside his thin jacket. He was dressed in a tennis suit which fitted him perfectly. Bishop called me aside.

"That chap has two or three trunks full of all kinds of clothes," he said in a whisper, "but this is the first time I ever saw this one. What do you call it?"

"That's a tennis suit," I said.

"Tennis!" he grunted. "That's worse than golf, isn't it, Jack?"

I laughed, and then we turned our attention to the young Scotchman.

The moment he grasped my driver and swung it with an easy but powerful wrist movement I knew he was an expert. You can almost pick the good golfer by the way he takes a club from a bag. His skill is shown in his manner of teeing a ball, and no duffer ever "addressed" the sphere or "waggled" his club so as to deceive those who know the game.

Wallace did not tee the ball on any raised inequality of the turf, but simply placed it on a smooth spot, such as one would select as the average brassie lie. If I had any lingering doubt as to his ability, this one preliminary act dispelled it.

Now that I calmly recall this scene in that sheep pasture, its dramatic grotesqueness rather appeals to me. Here were three young ladies, all of them pretty, all wealthy and holding high social positions, watching with bated breath a farmhand of unknown birth in the act of striking a golf ball. Surely golf is the great leveller! Perhaps it is the hope of the ultimate democracy; the germ of the ideal brotherhood of man.

I presume Bishop was thinking that Wallace would better be employed in running a mowing machine.

"The Scotch method of making a full drive," said Wallace, facing his interested little audience, and speaking with more enthusiasm than was his wont, "or, if you prefer it, the St. Andrews style, is distinguished from most types by what might be termed its exaggerated freedom. It is a full, free swing with an abandoned follow through. It probably comes from the confidence which has been handed down from generations of golf-playing people. The Scotch are a conservative and deliberate people in most things, but the way they seem to hit a golf ball gives to most observers the impression of carelessness and lack of considered effort. That, I should say," he concluded, with a droll smile, "is enough for the preacher."

I felt mortally certain Wallace would make a failure of that first shot, and he told me later he was rather nervous, but he took no unnecessary chances.

He used a three-quarter swing--at least so it appeared to me--such a one I should employ to drive a low ball about one hundred and fifty yards. He seemed to put no effort into it, but the result proved there was not an ounce of misapplied energy. It all seemed unstudied, but I knew that every muscle and sinew of his lithe and well-proportioned body was working to the end that the face of his club should not swerve by one hair's breadth from the course he had planned for it.

It was the ball which we less-favoured golfers dream shall some day be ours to command; the ball which starts low, rises in a concave curve, and ends its trajectory in a slight slant to the left--the low, hooked ball. It was not a phenomenally long drive; about two hundred yards, I should say, but for the apparent effort expended I have never seen a more perfect shot.

"Why in thunder don't you hit it hard, Wallace?" demanded Bishop. "Soak it, man, soak it! That was only a love tap."

I would rather have stood in the shoes of that "hired man," and listened to the comments of those three girls, than to rival the eloquence of Demosthenes, and withstand the surges of the applause of admiring thousands.

"Let me drive two or three easy ones, Mr. Bishop," Wallace said, placing another ball on the turf, "and then I will press a bit, and see if I have lost the feel of a full swing."

It was a wonderful exhibition of clean, long driving. He teed a dozen balls, and I doubt if one of them fell fifteen yards outside the line of the lone walnut tree which had been selected as the target. The ground was fairly level, and Mr. Bishop and I paced the distance to the outer ball. We agreed that it was about two hundred and forty yards from the point driven, and seven of the twelve balls were found within a radius of fifteen yards. In fact all of them would have been on or near the edge of a large putting green.

I have seen longer driving, but nothing equalling it in accuracy or consistency.

"It is very much better than I had expectation of doing," said Wallace. "That is a well-balanced club of yours, Mr. Smith, but a bit too short and whippy for me."

He good-naturedly consented to try lofting and approaching shots. On the start he was a little unsteady, due probably to lack of familiarity with my clubs, which are made to conform with some of my pet hobbies. After a few minutes' practise he got the hang of them and did really brilliant work.

With a mashie at one hundred and twenty yards he dropped ball after ball within a short distance of a stake which served to indicate a cup. He picked them clean from the turf, lofting them with that back-spin which causes them to drop almost dead. It was the golf I have always claimed to be within the range of possibility, but I never hoped to see it executed. Even Bishop was impressed with the skill displayed by his employee, and as the balls soared true from his club, like quoits from the hand of a sturdy expert, the farmer grinned his appreciation.

"I don't know much about this here game, Jack," he said, as Wallace rejoined us, "but it looks to me as if this man of mine has you Woodvale fellows skinned a mile. Tell you what I'll do! I'll back him for ten dollars against any man you've got."

"I am not eligible to play in Woodvale," observed Wallace, a peculiar smile hovering on his lips, "so it is useless to discuss that."

"You shall play as my guest," declared Miss Lawrence. "I have a perfect right to--"

"I should be glad to extend that courtesy to Mr. Wallace at any time," I interrupted, fearing that she might say something which would be misconstrued.

"I thank both of you, but it is out of the question," said Wallace with quiet dignity, and Miss Harding with her usual tact changed the topic by asking Wallace to illustrate a certain point relating to the short approach shot.

On our way back to the auto I walked with Mr. Bishop, and of a sudden a thought occurred to me.

"I am in an important competition for a trophy presented to the club by Mr. Harding," I explained, "and I wish you to do me a favour."

"What kind of a favour?"

"If I can arrange with Wallace to give me a few lessons in driving and approaching, will you have any objections? It would put some extra money in his pocket."

"Not after he is through with his work," Bishop said, hesitating a moment. "But I can't have you folks takin' up his time as a regular thing when he should be out in the field. This thing to-day is all right enough, and I'm glad to accommodate Miss Lawrence and the rest of ye, but of course, as you know, Jack, it breaks up his day's work, and this is a busy season on a farm like this. But as a rule he is through his chores at half-past six, and there's lots of sunlight after that."

I managed to get Wallace aside before we left the farmhouse. I told him of the club competition and of my desire to win the Harding trophy.

"Mr. Bishop tells me your time is your own after half-past six in the evening," I said. "Would you be willing to give me a few lessons after that hour? I will bring clubs and balls and meet you where we were this afternoon."

"I will tell you anything I know, Mr. Smith," he said, "but I fear I shall prove a poor instructor."

"I shall expect to pay for your time, Mr. Wallace, and if you can improve my drive you will find it worth your while," I said, glad of a chance to do something in an honourable way for a chap who certainly has not been favoured with his share of good fortune.

"If I accept pay I will become a professional golfer, will I not, Mr. Smith?" he asked, and for the life of me I did not know what to say.

"I would be willing to pay you five dollars a lesson," I said, ignoring his question, trusting that the figure named would outweigh scruples, if he really had any.

"It is more than I would take, though I thank you for the offer," he said. "I do not doubt that golf is an honourable profession--in fact I know it is--but for reasons which will not interest you I prefer to maintain my amateur standing. It will be a pleasure to play with you, sir, and to help your game if I can, but I would rather not accept money."

"Very well," I said, "I'll find some other way to repay you. Suppose I take the first lesson to-morrow evening?"

"To-morrow evening at half after six o'clock," he said, and we shook hands in parting to bind the agreement.

I had already formed a plan by which I could even matters without the direct passing of money. It strikes me as odd that this farmhand should object to becoming a professional golfer, but it tends to prove the accuracy of my original opinion that he is some college chap, probably of good family, who is at the end of his resources.

We had no sooner started from Bishop's than Miss Lawrence turned her batteries on me.

"You think you are very sly, do you not, Mr. Smith?" she began.

"In what way, Miss Lawrence?"